JOSEPH CONRAD

JOSEPH CONRAD

Joseph Conrad's fiction represents an intermediate stage in the transformation of the nineteenth century realistic novel into a modernist one. Considered a great novelist, unique in English literature, he was born Josef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski in 1857 in the Russian- occupied Polish Ukraine. His personality developed under two influences: his father who was a romantic nationalist transmitted him "the melancholy of defeated aspirations"- Cedric Watts and the propensity for literature; after his father's death his uncle led him towards skeptical rationalism and severe realism.

Because of his father's patriotism and conspirational activities the family was exiled when Joseph was only four years old. Despite his green age Joseph remained emotionally attached to his native land: "From this time onward 'Conrad' would always remain to some degree exiled and stateless; so would the fiction he came to write"- Malcolm Bradbury.

The political turmoil and the violence of life made of Joseph an orphan at the age of eleven and uncle Thaddeus, his mother 's brother raised him. When he grew up Joseph Conrad chose his second exile, which led him to his first career, that of a seaman. He started as a 757e45h sailor in the French Merchant Navy but four years later he "drifted" into the British Merchant Navy in order to avoid conscription in the Russian army, and in 1886 he became a British subject. Conrad's first career which meant long voyages all over the world marked his personality and made him bring a new perspective to English literature. "The fiction he started now would always have, in language as well as vision, a touch of the foreign and the exiled about it.-Malcolm Bradbury; Douglas Brown states that "Conrad's art addresses our senses, and then, goes on from there".

Conrad tries to avoid conventional epic narrative structures in the favour of an "uncommon narrational technique". The use of a narrator who is also a character of his own implies Marlow's recollection of events; therefore their succession is not a chronological one. Avoiding the chronological order, the author actually avoids the artificiality of his work; an order determined by memory, associations and feelings seems more natural.

In Conrad's novels events and characters are presented from different points of view: in Lord Jim, for example, Marlow communicates what he has heard about Jim from other characters. This structure annihilates the concept of "omniscient author" and suggests a certain ambiguity since no event or character can be firmly presented. His use of language also stresses the idea of ambiguity and the impossibility of absolute, unique knowledge.

Humanity's struggle with fate is one of the recurring themes in the novels and his experience offers him rich material. Fate is generally associated with weather and most of the dangers, of the situations on the edge of life completed with the continuous threatening of death are metaphorically presented in the descriptions of nature. "Conrad's essays and articles illustrate that his interest is always in philosophic issues rather than mere physical details. He wrote about the sea not simply as a phenomenon he knew, but because it provided him with a perfect metaphor for humanity's vulnerability, and for its struggle against overwhelming forces"- Brian Spittles.

Joseph Conrad starts his literary career with the novel Almayer's Folly published in 1895 when the author formally dropped his Polish name. The story which is about outcast Europeans in the Malaya archipelago is followed by a similar one An Outcast of the Islands, in 1896. Both have as central theme the existence on the edge of life and the existence as isolation. In 1898 The Nigger of the "Narcissus" marks the beginning of Conrad's modern fiction; the novel which is based on a voyage from Madras to Dunkirk remains for its intensity. The conflict between selfishness and fellowship in The Nigger of the "Narcissus" is transferred to man's "fidelity to the general tradition of civilization" in Heart of Darkness, a novel published in 1899.

The Heart of Darkness is "a cunning allegory or light falling into darkness, a descent through the heart of Africa into human horror and the black places of the soul"- Malcolm Bradbury. Marlow's venture extends from the ocean voyages to the African jungle whose virginity can be compared to the wilderness of the sea. Marlow, the main character is also narrator of the story, a kind of medium, which allows the correspondence between the author and the work, perhaps an alter ego of Joseph Conrad. By using Marlow, Conrad lets the reader know that the process of creation is not simple transmission of the author's experience but it implies an alternation. Marlow's story deals with a journey from London to Cango where he, a stranger belonging to European civilization, realizes the gap between Europeans and the black men.

In Congo Marlow meets two people: the anonymous Manager of the Central Station, who represent the exploiters, and Kurtz, who represent the "civilised". These characters are presented in opposition. Mr. Kurtz seems to be a very interesting character because of his complexity, because of his evolution in Africa. He is considered a victim of his gift of speech because his words have an influence on his audience and also on the speaker. He merely believes in himself and in his speech meant to establish an influence on the blacks as if his words had an auto reflexive power. Even Kurtz's personality does not resist to it, which leads to self- deification. The paradoxical opposition between his terms implies the coexistence of good and evil. Kurtz builds his life on lies, the "stream of light" becomes a "flow of darkness", and this is what Marlow hates. Kurtz is a kind of Marlow's double, actually an inverted one since he "is a living incarnation of everything Marlow claims to hate". According to Berthoud the essential difference between Kurtz and Marlow is that in spite of all his gifts, the former "has proved incapable of restraint, and thus of fidelity to the values he has professed", he remains a creature in conflict.

One of the most important moments in the story is the scene of Kurtz's death- a condition for insight; this is the only moment when Kurtz sees his past as it has been. The way Marlow presents this moment shows the reader that it puts together all mankind's past, present and future.

In 1900 Conrad published a novel, Lord Jim, whose main character- a hero who fails to be a hero- can be considered another facet of Kurtz's personality. The whole novel is a woven round Jim's abandoning his vessel, the Patna, when he realizes it is sinking; by his gesture he violates a fundamental law of duty and responsibility. But the ship is rescued and Jim is seen as a coward. The novel also develops a relation between two persons: Marlow- who is a subtler narrator than the one in The Heart of Darkness- and Jim, a young naval officer.

Lord Jim turns out to be a more complex work either from the point of view of its structure or of the ideas involved. The adventure moves into the field of psychological and metaphysical investigation. The novel is structured in two parts: the first one deals with the immediate effects of Jim's jump from the Patna- which is regarded as a failure and also as a betrayal. The second part takes into account Jim's attempts at rehabilitation in an island province and the consequences of his jump. Conrad uses the technique of the point of view but he places Marlow's opinions are organized around Marlow's. there are two phrases used by Marlow in order to characterize Jim: Jim is "under a cloud" and Jim is "one of us". With respect to his aspect, job and relations Jim is considered by Marlow as on of them, he respects their code; but because of his deed the narrator places him under a cloud. For Marlow Jim's guilt represent a pretext for the story, it makes him think of the difference between ideal and reality.

Jim's tragedy is a leap into reality, he is conscious of his deed and of his guilt. However, his new chance in Patusan shows him that he was not the victim of an accident but this is his fate. Even in Patusan Jim remained an outsider and an individualist. For him there is only one way of rehabilitation, his death. Jim's sacrifice despite his fidelity to the Patusians allows a parallel with Christ's sacrifice and at the same time his death rehabilitates his honor.

Nostromo, published in 1904, treated the same theme of betrayal in an imaginary country, Costaguana. A later novel Under Western Eyes (1911) is considered by Bradbury Conrad's masterpiece and placed it somewhere between Dostoevsky and Nabokov. Two years later, in 1913, Conrad had his first popular success with Chance, and he returns to the sea stories in a last group of works: Victory, The Shadow Line, The Arrow of Gold, The Rescue. Towards his final years he succeeded in becoming one of the most famous writers in Britain.